"Seaweed"

Techno is well into its 30s, so it's to be expected that it might be getting creakier in the joints—or, to think of it in architectural terms, that the paint would be starting to peel, the pavement beginning to crack. One of the most exciting developments in dance music over the past few years (at least for noise fans) has been the slow growth of a style that celebrates the aesthetics of disrepair. See, for instance, the banged-up sides of labels like L.I.E.S. and the Trilogy Tapes.

When the Leipzig artist Mix Mup (Lorenz Lindner) remixes other artists' work—often alongside Kassem Mosse, in the tersely named duo MM/KM—the effect tends to resemble barnacles upon a battered hull. The outlines of the original are all but obliterated beneath a craggy layer of busted drum sounds and quavering synthesizers.

On his new solo EP for Belgium's Meakusma label, Lindner's broken approach sounds more focused than ever. This is minimal techno in the classic sense, after the fashion of STL or Thomas Brinkmann. Very little actually happens here, just a handful of drum-machine patterns sounding bent out of shape and running perilously out of sync. A lumpy background rhythm might have come from an Institut Für Feinmotorik performance for "empty" turntables prepared with rubber bands and bits of tape. But it's a strangely lyrical track, too, animated by a glowing half-melody that tosses to and fro—not unlike a rope of algae rolled this way and that in the receding tide.